I made some good progress today. The oil pump is done, as well as the water pump, timing belt and oil pan. I'm in the process of bolting on the rest of the stuff I pulled to get the oil pan off. And I still have the front suspension, power steering and cooling system to wrap up. I also decided to go with a 16" electric fan for the radiator and 2 x 10" fans for the AC. I thought of using another 16" for the AC. But I don't see how it would fit between the front of the body and the core. The main reason I opted to take on the fans was because the body lift had moved the factory AC fan up about 3". So very little of the core was actually getting airflow from the fan. But I can get two small fans in that space. And I think I can fab up some brackets to shift the AC core up a few inches... maybe the radiator core too. I'll post some pics of it, once it's figured out and done.

As for the diff drop, it can be done. But it's not as simple as I though it would be. The plan is good: lower the diff on the left side to mount below the bracket. That measured out to be 1-7/16" with the bushings compressed to the torqued spec (48 ft-lb). The long bolt with spacer will work too. The problem is with the mount on the front of the diff housing. It bolts to a bracket on the cross member. However, when the diff is lowered, the mount hits the cross member and the diff assembly is pushed back about a 1/4" on the right side. It could be made to work. But it would require material to be removed from the housing and/or the cross member. And I'm not in the mood to give that a go. I also realized how much lower the diff will be (visually). I don't know if the mod is worth the loss of clearance... kind of defeats the purpose of the lift. I might look into the aftermarket CV joints I posted on the CV thread. They have better articulation than stock joints. If they aren't too expensive, I might follow through on that, which should do well for our lifted IFS suspensions given that the stock CVs have held up to the 4" lifts without trouble for many modders.

That's all for now...

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